The Future of the Colorado River Hinges on One Young Negotiator

Hamby defends this system, which allows the Imperial Valley " home to only half of a percent of the river's users, Hamby included " to control about a quarter of the river's flow. That's more than 10 times southern Nevada's allocation and more than the entire state of Arizona receives. A recent ProPublica and Desert Sun analysis found that 20 valley farming families use about 387 billion gallons of cheap water annually, most of it to grow cattle feed, and one family uses more water than the entire Las Vegas metropolitan area.

One family uses more water than all of Vegas. That's pretty incredible.

#1 | Posted by madbomber at 2023-11-20 03:06 PM | Reply | Newsworthy 1

Watch for this *this was going to be censored* in congress in a few years. Defending the indefensible, no doubt a rising star in the GOP.

WTH are they farming cattle in that part of California for? I do understand food crops for people but cattle are extremely water intense. Alfalfa? To feed the cattle? The whole systems is screwed up. A huge amount of produce comes from California - in particular in the winter. I don't know if there is a solution to that but Imperial Irrigation District needs to see its allotment shrink drastically and I don't know how that can be done legally. It also needs to pay for enclosed pipes to move the water so the massive losses incurred with open air dirt canals are minimized - in that regard the same goes for all those large open air canals.

#2 | Posted by GalaxiePete at 2023-11-20 03:13 PM | Reply

Alfalfa? To feed the cattle?
It's even worse than you think. We grow rice in the desert, load it on to a container ship, lug it across the Pacific and sell it to the Japanese with a tariff attached. It's low quality rice. The Japanese feed it to pigs. We sell rice, at a premium to the Japanese. It has something to do with TPP and the Pacific Rim deal. You can try reading about it but I promise half way in you'll want to set your hair on fire.
www.reuters.com

I remember this story from years ago, have no idea if it's true. There is a small cookie company in the Netherlands, most of their customers were in S. Africa. Afrikaners wanting a taste of the 'home'land or whatever. And there was another small cookie company that made traditional Dutch cookies in S. Africa that sold most of their wares in the Netherlands.
Like, switch recipes, save the diesel and all that trouble you ------- wooden shoe wearing, velocipede riding, ditch-weed growing imbeciles!

I was at a grow shop recently buying some fiskars and the guy behind the counter wanted to up-sale me on some Japanese trimming scissors.
$42 dollars!?! "they're imported, Japanese steel"
Ring up the damn fiskars before I stab you in the eye, kid.

#3 | Posted by BluSky at 2023-11-22 11:57 PM | Reply

My first comment...

... The Future of the Colorado River Hinges on One Young Negotiator ...

Yeah. But no. The future of the Colorado River is not based upon one person.

That aside, I had some fun exploring...

(and many thanks for the reuters.com link your comment provided. It gave me a jumping off point)

I found this...

Explore the U.S. Rice Industry
www.usarice.com

That lead me to this...

The U.S. Rice Story
www.usarice.com

... The U.S. rice industry's commitment to sustainability dates back generations, long before the word "sustainability" became a popular term. And today, the rice community continues to make strides towards a more sustainable future.

All segments of the U.S. rice industry are invested in sustainable production and processing practices because it's personal " providing for their families, serving their communities, protecting wildlife habitats, and creating jobs. Their stewardship is deliberate, ensuring a healthy, safe food supply, while improving the environment, and contributing to the local economy. ...

So, I popped a question into my search engine of choice and I found...

Is rice production sustainable?
www.investmentmonitor.ai

... Rice is the third-most cultivated cereal crop globally, after maize and wheat. It is a vital staple food for the world's population and critically important to many developing countries, particularly in Asia.

However, rice is facing numerous challenges. Rice is a highly water-intensive crop and its sustainability is put in doubt by the climate crisis and growing water scarcity issues. The use of fertilisers and pesticides in rice paddies is also harmful to the environment.

China and India represent more than 50% of global rice production. In 2019, China produced 211.4 million tonnes of rice, equivalent to 28.2% of the world's total, while India produced 177.6 million tonnes, or 23.7% of global production.

The top nine rice producers are in Asia and make up 85% of global production. Asian countries also lead the way in rice exports, with India the top exporter in 2019 with a total of $6.8bn exported, according to the UN's Comtrade. Thailand is the second-largest exporter ($4.21bn), followed by Vietnam ($2.43bn) and Pakistan ($2.27bn). The US comes in fifth with $1.88bn worth of rice exports in 2019. ...

[emphasis mine]

So, abundant supplies of water seem to be essential for the growing of rice.

From what I have seen, the Colorado River and abundant supplies of water are two things I do not usually see in the same sentence.

What am I missing?

#4 | Posted by LampLighter at 2023-11-23 12:18 AM | Reply

My understanding is the main advantage with rice is that it can produce two crops a year in the right environment. The California desert isn't the right environment, we get one harvest per year and grow something else in the winter months. This makes it even less efficient. You either have to run a bunch of equipment to reconfigure the field twice a year or leave all the little ----- in place and grow nothing.

Good luck with your international trade rabbit hole. A lot of it seems really stupid to me. We make these agreements to stay in place over so many years and every time a new regime gets elected they want to put their mark on trade. And since no one's election cycle matches there is a new regime somewhere every year. They try to change a deal but to do so they have to adjust some other deal and in doing that they fall out of compliance with some other deal and have to make it up and so on and so on. Next thing you know were obligated to grow rice in the desert to feed Japanese pigs.

#5 | Posted by BluSky at 2023-11-23 02:11 AM | Reply

@#5 ... in the right environment. ...

Yeah, that seems to e the operative comment in this discussion.

#6 | Posted by LampLighter at 2023-11-23 02:17 AM | Reply